


Useless

by hitlikehammers



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Costume Kink, Santa Suits, Santa hats, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 07:12:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8965408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: Sherlock growls and throws himself back on the sofa with particular vigour. “It’s Christmas, Sherlock, fucking hell,” John grouses with no real heat, and Sherlock can hear the roll of his eyes as clear as the sigh that he heaves upon closing the door—and Christmas, of all things to try and sway him: Sherlock thought he’d taught John better.Christmas, really.Useless. (Winter Gift-Fic Extravaganza, 7/25)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thescienceofobsession (ScienceofObsession)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScienceofObsession/gifts).



> For my dear [thescienceofobsession](http://thescienceofobsession.tumblr.com), for the seventh of my of the 25 Days/Fics of my Winter Gift Fic Extravaganza and the accidental!prompt: _benign Santa fashion. Go!_ —Unbeta'd, but like the prompt itself, typos are (hopefully) tech-glitches of joy in disguise ;)

If pushed for a descriptor of some suitability, he’d say it was useless. Absolutely pointless nonsense, beneath befitting a categorisation of _boring_ , to the point where if that which is boring deserves at least the merits of being recycled into something more worthwhile, energy and time and thought transmuted for nothing else, perhaps, save to avoid said boring instance in future and ensure efficiency of the process at large, _this_ deserve nothing more than the basest and most trivial non-attention required to bin it immediately and perhaps incinerate, simply to recoup some of the composite elements from the flames.

“Fucking drama queen.”

It’s disturbing how well John can read him now, to observe him sprawled as he is upon the sofa and read well enough the course of his mental pontification. It’s disturbing how much of his Palace is made of John, so that it is nigh-impossible for anything to pass through its halls even merely on a whim without John seeing it out the corner of his eye.

“It’s for a good cause, you know.”

Sherlock sighs, and turns further into the back of the sofa, because good cause, good _cause_ , good god. A good cause is spending the day at the morgue, or examining those cultures he ordered from Tehran, or even composing or visiting the Network for tips before the Yard gets their grubby hands all over a perfectly good crime scene because heaven forfend Sherlock be gifted with a single case in the history of his association with the Met where he’s not required to backtrack for at least seven milliseconds to undo whatever stupidities they’ve inflicted upon the evidence.

Morons. 

Good _cause_.

“Lestrade’s your _friend_ ,” John says, and Sherlock listens to the pause in his words, his breath as he pulls his boot onto one foot, and then onto the other. “You should be pleased I’m helping him so that _you_ don’t have to, you stubborn wanker.”

Sherlock thinks for an instant, dull and ill-used, of being petulant, of recycling tired lines, of _repetition_ , god forbid, but again: John knows him too well.

“Oh but I don’t _have_ friends!” John puts on a voice in mimicry, which, well.

That’s a bridge too far.

“I sound, absolutely _nothing_ like—”

“Pull that one again, Sherlock, and that bullet-hole grin on the wall might get a twin.”

John taps against where he keeps his Sig handy with a raised brow. Sherlock knows better than to take the threat seriously, but knows just the same that the threat was meant not for his the wellbeing of his body at large, but his mouth in particular.

“I’d say it’s amazing how little interest you take,” John muses as he shrugs on his jacket, for reasons Sherlock can't possibly imagine save for making pointless noise and prompting Sherlock himself to curl tighter into himself on the sofa to drown it out; “in the wellbeing of your fellow man—”

“ _That_ is a _lie_!”

Sherlock leads to his feet, and John looks up, more a challenge then a question in his gaze; Sherlock’s taken aback by the eye contact for a half-breath as he always is, goddamnit _all_ , not because John is _breathtaking_ , what horrible cliche drivel, but because, well.

Just because.

Sherlock blinks, and John’s staring him down with that patented _I’m waiting, Sir Enormous Brain_ look, and fine.

Fine, then.

“I have dedicated my entire life, my _entire_ sense of purpose and being, John, to the improvement of humankind, to the bringing of closure to the kinds of scenarios that could haunt the remaining waking days of hundreds. Thousands!”

Sherlock narrows his eyes at John, who doesn’t appear fazed. At all.

“Did you have that rehearsed, or have you just been holding it back all this time, waiting for the opportune moment?”

Sherlock growls and throws himself back on the sofa with particular vigour. 

“It’s _Christmas_ , Sherlock, fucking hell,” John grouses with no real heat, and Sherlock can hear the roll of his eyes as clear as the sigh that he heaves upon closing the door—and Christmas, of all things to try and sway him, Sherlock thought he’d taught John better.

 _Christmas_ , really.

Useless.

__________________

Sherlock Holmes is very keen on extracting truths, in the realm of facts that help reveal accuracy.

Sherlock Holmes is considerably less keen on extracting truths that have anything at all to do with his own personal selfhood or internal well being or emotional...inconveniences. 

It is, therefore, of course the former concern that brings him to the Met later that day, and yes, he made certain to wear black and _only_ black to avoid any suggestion of festive wardrobe choices—because someone ~~Anderson~~ was certain to call aubergine something utterly absurd like _sugar plum_ — when he leaves to retrieve a particular case file with a particular bit of evidence enclosed in order to measure patterns against suggested criminal activity in Paris for similarities that are absolutely valid and entirely worth pursuing at this juncture.

It has nothing to do with the realisation—somewhat belated admittedly, but Sherlock had indeed been rather occupied with unrelated and infinitely more important considerations when John left the flat this morning—that John left the flat in his fifth-best pair of jeans and his least cheerful holiday-cheer jumper (the one that John has insisted was not a festive jumper at all but Sherlock had vehemently disagreed given his own study on the subject for a case involving a quadruple homicide at a Christmas gathering in 2009). 

And if John was volunteering for the Yard’s unimaginatively-titled Ho-Ho-Holiday Festival, he would have worn his best jeans and his brightest jumper and probably those horrible headband-antlers with the migraine-inducing bells.

The fact, unrelated to any of this, is that Sherlock absolutely needs the aforementioned file. For a case.

Exactly.

So he manages to dodge most of the celebratory masses, the parents mulling, the _children_ seeking out sweets and parcels and _Santa_ , and try as Sherlock might he cannot fathom how _this_ sort of “outreach initiative” could improve public opinion regarding police activity city-wide. If anything, Sherlock would think it’s primed to achieve the exact opposite, but Sherlock’s observational skills are unparalleled, and Lestrade hadn’t needed to say the words when he glared Sherlock’s direction upon announcing the holiday event to make the message perfectly clear: _Half our issue with public fucking opinion is your fault, Sherlock Holmes, so shut your bloody mouth or god help me I will end you._

Not that Sherlock is threatened by the notion, but he’s willing to concede the point.

That is, until he has to enter the mess himself, in the flesh.

At which point, all bets—explicit or implied—are off.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’re not here to spread good tidings, eh?”

Sherlock doesn’t bother to turn at Lestrade’s sarcastic lilt at his elbow; such nonsense does not deserve acknowledgement.

“If you’re looking for your boy—”

“I’m here for a file,” Sherlock clarifies, quickly, but of course Lestrade doesn’t give a damn.

“—he’s over there. Just follow the children.”

And with a raise of a paper cup of punch that Sherlock suspects was sweetened just a little, if a little means consistently since the beginning of the spectacle, he leaves Sherlock to decide whether to go for his case file, or investigate just why John, in his fifth-best jeans and his least festive holiday jumper is currently situated at the proverbial end of the line of small children who are proving progressively more high-pitched as Sherlock follows them forward. Perhaps John is handing out treats? Directing wrapping services? Demonstrating proper Christmas cracker safety?

Maybe—

And then Sherlock reaches the front of the line.

It’s an entirely unimpressive sight. Nothing particularly notable, or out of place given the context. The setting is generic at best, half-hearted by most relevant criteria, with far more glitter and tinsel and fairy lights than is standard, and presents a 57% of inducing temporary cognitive impairment at minimal levels given the frequency of the blinking and the subsequent reflections: _twinkling_ , Sherlock suspects, was the aim.

They managed nauseating, so: predictable.

But it’s standard. And the children seem enchanted, because they’re small and not particularly sophisticated with regard to taste: dull. And they’re all waiting to sit on the lap of the typical holiday-themed instrument of behavioural control, who is likewise seated in the standard place between two pathetically-poor attempts at wood cutout elves, in the most benign of red suits off a hanger at a shop, hat ill-fitting and hanging down by the fluff at the tip just along the side of the poor sod they’ve hired to act as _Santa_ ’s head, and—

Sherlock’s thought process shudders to a halt.

He opens his mouth to say absolutely nothing, but that makes little sense, because why else would his jaw drop open save to convey a thought in words, but there are no words, and, and…

The poor sod is no poor sod. Well, yes, but.

The poor sod is _John_.

And John is not in his fifth-best jeans or his only-just festive jumper, which makes sense now, because he’s dressed in the completely benign, blindingly-coloured suit edged with terribly tufted-up fur, false beard hanging awkwardly and the paunch beneath the jacket dreadfully obvious in being a fake, but his eyes are the sort of thing no one could miss.

Least of all Sherlock. 

John’s got a small girl balanced on his lap, giggling wildly, innocent as John grin the smile that Sherlock’s long since given up quantifying for the way it moves and dances and sings symphonies with no tune, no instrument to count cadence through his chest: he nods and leans in as she whispers something conspiratorially to John, a wish for the impossible passed onto a figment of child’s play and parents’ untruths, played by a soldier with too big a heart, a detective of at least mediocre skill, Sherlock’s—

John laughs, and sends the girl back to her mother, and looks up before he waves the next child toward him. He catches Sherlock’s eye.

Which is not surprising, given the fact that Sherlock is staring, and his mouth is still open like he needs to say something without having anything to say: uncanny.

John grins up at him, winks, and Sherlock feels a leap in his stomach, in his chest before John looks away and goes about inviting the next child forward.

Sherlock doesn’t wait to watch; turns in a billow of his overcoat and stalks away.

He’s on Baker Street before he remembers that he never retrieved the file he needed.

__________________

After returning home, Sherlock had resorted to working on clearing some of the human samples that were taking up space in the kitchen. He had some eyeballs that had absolutely no place to live, and that was unacceptable.

He heard John come in, and willed himself to only hum noncommittally at John’s greeting, John’s recounting of his work at the Met benefit, his highlighting of particularly “adorable” (or especially difficult) encounters with the children (and their parents), his idle mention that he wished Sherlock would have stayed, one particular pudding was fantastic, etcetera, etcetera and so on.

Sherlock remains sotic by carefully _not_ focusing on the odd, inexplicable sensations he’d had at seeing John in that red suit, that white fluff, soft and warm and bright and just, just—

Oversized. Covering so much. Too much. All of the parts and splays that Sherlock knew, had mapped a thousand times but never enough, and of all things, of all _things_ —

“Sherlock?” John calls from the bedroom, and Sherlock starts a bit, turns toward the sound. “Give me a hand?”

Sherlock sighs, and puts the eyeballs aside.

And he’s not incapable of recognising irony to the point that he doesn’t see it for the split-second before his thought-processes short circuit a bit; he’s put aside the eyeballs.

His are currently wide enough to sting.

“Think I didn’t notice?” John says to him, where he’s stopped still at the door; John, who’s spread on their bed, stripped to nothing but, but—

John smirks, quirks a brow; Sherlock imagines that he looks much as he did at the Station, though he thinks he understands why a bit better now. The mouth open with nothing to say. Staring.

“Think I don’t know you well enough by now?”

And no, Sherlock didn’t think that, couldn’t think that in a million years, and certainly not at this moment, where the ill-fitting had proves it’s not ill-fitting at all, if put to the proper task. In fact, it fits just perfectly, fluff at the tip standing straight upright, with just a subtle curve, hard and proud and—

Dear god.

“Too bad for you, really,” John muses, a taunting, playful, _evil_ glint in his eyes as he shrugs, as the shrug flutters the muscles in his chest, his abdomen absolutely sinfully, and Sherlock has to force his mouth closed, because it’s too dry. Far too dry. 

“I learned my craft from a master of deduction,” John says, and curls a finger toward Sherlock, beckoning. “See,” and John looks at Sherlock significantly until he starts to unbutton his shirt, starts on the belt at his waist. 

“ _And_ ,” John draws the words out until Sherlock’s naked and standing next to the bed, in arm’s reach; John doesn’t waste any time and pulls him down, strong and firm to land skin to skin from head to foot against John’s hot flesh, the tickle of the hat between Sherlock crotch and John’s cock is a live wire, the brush of the white sphere at the end against the side of Sherlock’s balls a fucing _tease_ as John leans up and mouths at Sherlock’s ear, snide and sure and hot as hell:

“Observe.”

And Sherlock’s panting already, desperate for it, and his hand slides between them to lift the santa-hat from John’s dick, so they can both feel one another without anything standing in the way and and a good cause, John had said, Sherlock remembers as he claims John’s mouth unrelenting, unforgiving, and John moans, bracing hands on Sherlock’s shoulders, the sides of his neck, and yes, a worthy cause, Sherlock smiles into the kiss— _Christmas_ , indeed.

Utterly _useless_.


End file.
